The Art of Writing

Written by Victoria Baker
Thursday, 09 June 2011 12:49

This June the Greenwich Arts Council is hosting a very interesting writers workshop entitled “Essentials for the Fiction writer: Point of View.” This advanced workshop for fiction writers, applicable to both novel and short story writers, will attempt to help you make some critical and momentous choices such as: Through whose lens or filter will the reader receive your narrative?

Suzanne Hoover, professor of this class, holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University in English and Comparative Literature. The author of two novels, Suzanne was for 25 years a full-time member of the Literature faculty of Sarah Lawrence College. She currently teaches in the Sarah Lawrence Graduate Writing Program. For more information call 203.227.3250 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

In Ancient Greece, the art of writing was often just as much an oral tradition as a written one. Traveling bards, like the infamous Homer, would recite their creations. Using the medium of stories like The Iliad and The Odyssey they would magically transport the listener on a heroic journey. But both these epics were created without writing sources. Between the decline of Mycenaean and the emergence of classical Greek civilizations the inhabitants of the Greek lands had not yet acquired the familiarity with Phoenician alphabetic writing that would lead to classical Greek literacy and in turn, Etruscan, Roman, and modern European literacy. Therefore it can be concluded that the epics must have been created either before the end of the eighth century B.C.E. or so shortly afterwards that the use of alphabetic writing had not yet been developed sufficiently to record long pieces of writing.

It is probable that Homer’s name was applied to two individuals differing in style and artistic accomplishment, born perhaps as much as a century apart, but practicing the same traditional craft of oral composition and recitation. Although each became known as Homer, it may be (as one ancient source says) that “homros” was a word for a blind man and so came to be used generically to refer to the old and often sightless wandering reciters of heroic legends. Thus there could have been many Homers.

The two epics Homer is generally regarded as writing, however, have been as highly prized in modern as in ancient times for their vividness of expression, their keenness of personal characterization, and their lasting interest, whether in narration of action or in animated dramatic dialogue.

Whether you write or recite your fiction the object of any work of art is to transport your audience and I hope that any class you decide to take will do just that...give your inspiration wings to fly and your imagination the confidence and security to strive ever higher...

Victoria Baker of Greenwich is an opera singer. A winner of many prestigious competitions, she has performed and worked with distinguished artists across the world (notably at Lincoln Center). She teaches piano & voice privately in Greenwich. For questions that deserve answers, and may be in print, please call 203-531-7499 or send email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .